Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [END SPOILS WARNING] Addressing Karlach (PLEASE PUT SPOILERS IN TAGS)

Amen.

Don't know if some of you open a D&D DM book. At the end you have several pages of conclusion where each little part of all your story have its epilogue. So the players are satisfied to know what's next, even if it's not the best ending, depending of the Journey, but at least you know and you can start a new campaign without any frustration like "what could have happened if I had the possibility to change it".

Fact that there is no explanation about how things goes bad for Karlach in the whole game, there is no solution at least mentionned (without talking about a deus ex machina that most of the NPC have too, and that Karlach deserves too ngl), nothing you can do to change her fate... yeah we're not in a tragedy, we're more in a story that is not told to the end... for now only, I hope.


Justice for Karlach, she deserves one end with a lot of flowers too, after all she suffers without asking anything.

i need to say just one thing

#JusticeForKarlach

I think "movement" and "cause" are just words that have fallen under the umbrella, we've been called a movement, faction, cause, many similar words. I don't think anyone means to be overly obsessive, but many of us are driven and know that we have to maintain our voice to see any kind of success, or be seen by Larian at all. Appreciate your contribution and support none the less.

Just made an account to post here. There's nothing I could add that hasn't been said already about how Karlach deserves a happy ending, how much the character has resonated with me, how much the VA absolutely killed the role, improved my playthrough...everything everyone's already said.

What I will add is an extremely important consequence of Karlach's poor conclusion, at least for me: I have no desire to play her as an origin character or even have her in my party when I inevitably replay this game. For such a great character this is an absolute tragedy, but since her endings are all functionally the same, there's nothing more for me to discover about her in different playthroughs. After having Shadowheart go down a good path, I'm looking forward to a Dark Urge game where she can after ending the game with Gale in my party, on another run I can But with Karlach, since no roads lead to fixing her heart, one playthrough is sufficient to get everything out of the character, save a single dialogue option at the end that lets you choose death versus Avernus. On that note, I feel like there's no difference between choosing to die or choosing to go to Avernus--her problem is that her heart doesn't work, and neither of those address that. No matter what route we take, she ends up in exactly the same place we found her in at the beginning of the game.

Squid ending can stay because it's goofy as hell and while it feels bad on a character level (given there's no good ending to fall back on), it feels like an extremely out of left field D&D move I can absolutely see a player at my table making during a tabletop finale. Plus, if we had a satisfactory good ending for Karlach, I honestly feel like mind flayer would be a fine "option to save Karlach if you blew off all her personal quest stuff" kinda ending.

This unfortunately killed the game for me. I don't think it would have if I was playing an origin character, but as my own character, it did. I'm very invested in my character, because it's my character, and finding out that I can't succeed at perhaps the only thing I wanted, really just makes me not want to continue at all.

After the Act 3 date night and the subsequent conversation, it seemed like the game was again telegraphing that there was no good ending. I thought that surely that must not be the case, but knew I would be mad if it was, so I went to find out. Glad I did, because it spared me the experience of finding out first hand only after investing even more time and emotional energy into the game. She's perhaps the only character I actively liked from the start, one of the few who isn't arrogant, self-righteous, or self-serving. Being made to listen to Karlach's happiness about being free and in the world, the city she grew up in, and the people she cares about, only to learn that her choices for life are being a slave for eternity, being mutilated, or being dead, really crushed any desire I have to keep playing. Dropping the game 80% of the way through is rough, but when I load it up I just feel no motivation to continue playing.

It's a fantasy world with plenty of opportunity, not just in the general D&D universe, but *specifically in the game* and having them all completely disregarded, is a tragedy. Such a wholesome character wasted on what I think the writers must have thought was deep and tragic, but is instead just offensive and disappointing. People have already covered the plentiful ways that her story could have been addressed by things specifically called out in the game as being possible and real solutions, but literally any of those would be better than what we got. Have the Grymforge gnomes fix her, have Dammon fix her, let me use Divine Intervention on her, do literally anything that has already been established as possible, but not just "lol oh well she must suffer for all eternity because we think it's funnier that way."

Guess I'll see if it gets fixed in a Definitive Edition, because right now I can't find the motivation to continue.

We can all only hope that its remedied in a Definitive Edition (given the work), or sooner. So many people have approached me on the discord, or posted similar comments to yourself that it either ruined their experience, made them want to give up, or that they were glad to be spoiled, saving themselves the emotional turmoil of having the ability to save her, but being refused the opportunity to investigate, or grasp it. I hope Larian hears us out, and in the coming months, or even year, we succeed in getting Karlach the ending she deserves.

#JusticeForKarlach

Anyone with a youtube video of the Karlach ending where Tav asks her if she wants to stay and die in the material plane or go with they (tav) to avernus?

I like her reply there and its a good argument on how Karlach grew from being absolutely against ever going back to really putting her desire for a emotional relationship with Tav above her own personal fears of Avernus.

I'll try, last time i only saw 1 person with fairly bad combo of dialogues, the guy seemly avoided all the romantic replies Karlach gives to the player on purpose.

Speaking of which, at least Karlach isnt in the same level of frustration as Minthara, on the other thread here some dialogue for her was data mined and apparently I am actually quite sad such big chunk of content was left out of BG3.

Time constraints are time constraints, I understand that Larian wanted to get to their deadline and show their product. We'll see how it goes in the future through patches and a possible DE.

Registered here just to post in this thread.

Finding out about Karlach's depressing ending options has killed all enthusiasm I had for this game. I'm so incredibly tired of seemingly all modern media being obsessed with being depressing, dark, edgy, ironic, or subversive. Can't we just have a happy ending for once?! I thought with BG3's much-touted thousands of endings that surely one of Karlach's would be happy, right?

Especially since Karlach is the one honest-to-goodness GOOD character in the game. She is an unwavering bright spot in a cast of characters who are all varying degrees of dark and edgy. Her presence seemed to indicate that somebody at Larian knew that some of us want to embrace the classic do-gooder hero archetype. Her whole plot line builds up hope that you can help her and that she can be free. And yet it's all for nothing and she's the character that gets the worst most unhappy endings?! The other characters can escape the awful things happening to them, but not Karlach?! That's just flat out depressing.

I've played up to the inn in the shadowlands three times. The last restart was specifically so I could get Karlach early to have her for as much of the game as possible and to make sure the romance happened. I was so excited she and my character were going to blast through the game attached at the hip. That's how great a character she is! But what a waste of time that turned out to be. I'm honestly glad I got spoiled; I can't imagine how angry I'd be if I'd played the whole game to find out all the breadcrumbs and hope lead to nothing.

And what's more is now I don't trust that the writers will stick any other landings. If they feel this kind of dark bait and switch of a wonderful well-loved character is acceptable and appropriate, then I shudder to think what else is in store. I feel like I'd need to look up spoilers for the whole game to make sure it's not dark and depressing all the way down, and if I need to do that then what's the point?!

Thank you for starting this thread and giving me a place to lay out my thoughts. I really enjoyed my week with BG3 and I wish things were different. Maybe the writers will rethink this and add a way to fix Karlach and have an actual happy ending. I sure hope so.

I am not too fond of giving a good ending to every companions just because some people got too emotionally attached to a virtual character. Having a doomed character can be a thrilling element in a story, see Cyberpunk for a recent exemple.
I admit that Karlach story isn't good in that regard though. The only conversation about how doomed she is is put under the rug for the rest of the story until the very end. Larian probably wanted to show how optimistic and carefree this character is, but forgot that this plot point is a core component of her. So people are dumbfounded to find that this unavoidable conflict eventually get "resolved" in the last few minutes of the game. Meanwhile, Astarion reminds us constantly of his condition and his goal. His story feels way more organic because it isn't a big void of nothing until players get hit by it.

I am hopeful for some kind of change to happen though, there's no way we're stuck with the endings we got and the disjointed act 3 quest.

Justice for Karlach!

I think one of the biggest signs to me, as the individual who's made these posts and such is the sheer amount of people being /glad/ they were spoiled, or completely demotivated by the knowledge, if not both. That is the biggest sign, absolutely, that something needs changing. I hope that we're successful so each and every person that's replied to my posts with a similar message is able to be motivated, and pleased with the result.

But we are talking about a game that has been putting a lot of emphasis on having choices and thousands of ending variations. Of course they should keep these current endings, but also add a genuinely happy ending with no strings attached for people who are fed up with forced sad- or bittersweet endings.

That's a way different case, as Cyberpunk is a more linear game that led to 3 different way to start the last mission, depending if you choose to be who you are, to let Johnny take the lead, or to doom the whole world. Plus you know at the beginning of the game that you're condamned.

Here the problem is, game gives you a problem, provides tons of solutions... but never let you try any solutions.
There's two different notions :
- Having a doomed character whatever you try
- Having a doomed character because the game doesn't let you try

Karlach is in the second case. It's like the game tells you "hey here's a solution for Karlach, look at this big ol' forge, look at all these metal, look at those Gondians that worked on a similar prototype", but never let you talk to them, try a subquest where they could work on a fix.
If the game was linear, well it is what it is... But damn this is a RPG with 17,000 ends, we can expect way better than a single dead end you have no choice but to take.

I can expect that if I do everything correct for Karlach with all the ingredients the game gives me all along my play, I'll have a good ending. Like any other RPG, like in real life.
And if I miss something, for example here if Dammon dies, or if I don't free the gondians, or if they're killed, without even considering talking to Mizora... well in that case I assume I'll have a bad end and Karlach will have to go back to Avernus.


And if they absolutely want to bittersweet Karlach by not solving her problem in-game (which is not an obligation to always have a doomed character in a game, especially in the Forgotten Realms world where everything is possible but anyway), so we can easily imagine a last mission where you talk to the Gondians, give them all the ingredients and they tells you "I've never seen that kind of mechanic/magic before. This is not supposed to be in that Existence Plan. I prefer not to try to repair it as it could explode instantly. You'll certainly have to go back to Avernus". Like that you explore all the options, you have the feeling you did everything you could, there's no solution here and right now, but you have an epilogue that explain the follow.


There are plenty of better work doable with Karlach, and the game uses maybe 10% of what this character story can be, while any other companion are mostly well exploited.
In my opinion, The Ancient Forge was initially dedicated to Karlach story. This is not useful for the plot at all, we could easily had a direct path from the undergrounds to the Shadows. Why do we have to explore this forge ? Why is it so detailed when it's absolutely useless in the main plot ?
But they had to cut some quests to release the game.

Is she doomed if you play her? I sort of expected the 'best' ending for each origin to be locked behind playing them, but Astaron and Laz' can get their best endngs as companons.

Craziest part is that its not even the Gondians working on a similar prototype, they created the stable version based on hers. They are entirely capable of solving the issue.

Man that's even worse haha.
I'm confident, they will upgrade her story.